


The Sleep of Flowers

by Innin



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Consensual Somnophilia, F/F, Forest Sex, Magic, Mentor/Protégé
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-22 23:06:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14319060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Innin/pseuds/Innin
Summary: Melian teaches Galadriel to wake the spring flowers of Doriath.





	The Sleep of Flowers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kimaracretak](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/gifts).



> You had so many good prompts, it was hard to pick. I hope it hits the mark!

Melian laps up the droplets of snowmelt-cold water, pearlescent like petals over Galadriel's draped-out body. They act like the magnifying glasses that the chroniclers and gilders of Doriath use for their manuscripts, only here they magnify the tiny uprisings of her skin after bathing. For one who crossed the Ice it is natural, Melian muses, to be afraid of cold, but Galadriel obeys Melian's commands so beautifully that she will lower herself into the cold spring water of Esgalduin with nary a protest and, after bathing, let Melian's mouth and the thin fingers of spring sun through the budding trees dry her on the riverbank. Winter lingered late and there are few flowers yet. Lying bedded on a patch of moss, Galadriel stands out like a golden lily.

"Stay still," Melian reprimands softly, when Galadriel reaches for her dress and cloak. "Feel."

For all the cold, she endures. That, all that, is part of the forest that Galadriel asked to learn about. There can be no magic, for her, unless she learns it in her body. When Melian bound herself to her form, coming spirit to flesh, she had to learn the same, understand how magic flows with the blood and rises under the skin. 

Melian moves to reward Galadriel's obedience to the command, although her body quivers along the edges with the effort. Melian makes sure to warm her breath in her hands before she bends to lightly kiss where she knows Galadriel is sensitive. She lingers on one pebbled nipple, so the warmth of her mouth comes in counterpoint to Galadriel's frigid skin, and impulse supersedes obedience as Galadriel rises up with a gasp. Melian laughs softly against her skin, and Galadriel whines at the puffs of breath against the curve of her breast, and then at Melian's mouth leaving her to let the cold return.

It goes almost wordless, this game between them, save for the initial commands, sparse phrases that meet with reluctantly demure attention. Galadriel's arrogance has tempered into the beginnings of humility. She is yet learning, but for one like this glowing child of the Blessed Realm, the embodiment of the lights she turned her back on, who sucked in pride and certainty of her place in the world from the first breath taken, there is no learning without sweetness and reward. 

And it is so easy to lose oneself in such radiance, Melian muses as her mouth fastens over the jut of Galadriel's collarbone, and she holds it in her teeth, tasting Aman in bloom in her bones, until Galadriel squirms again and, breaking troth, props herself up on an elbow to look from heavy-lidded, love-struck eyes, wide and dark like a memory of moonless nights under the sky when Melian wandered alone in the forests. 

She cards her hand through Galadriel's shining tresses, a deeper gold now that they are wet than their usual radiant mingling of gold and silver, and shakes more drops onto Galadriel's skin with a lazy flick of her hand through the water. They roll down the plane of Galadriel's stomach, pooling in the hollow of one lifting hip, before spilling into the gold of her nether hair as Galadriel's legs fall open, seeing Melian's eyes coming to rest there. There is a muscle trying not to twitch into a smile in the corner of Galadriel's mouth as Melian studies her face for intent - she knows what she herself desires, and what Melian might choose to do once she is done with her idle play. 

"Not yet, I think," Melian says, low, and sits up with a rustle of her dress. She desires, yes, but the lesson is not yet at an end, and the brazen display grows an idea in her mind. "Show me what you learned. It is spring, and past time that the flowers opened. It should be easy, for in this you are alike. They are as eager to show themselves as you are," she says with fondness, a hand on the skin of Galadriel's inner thigh, fingers curling with promise. 

Under Melian's gesture, the carpet of moss Galadriel is bedded on makes an example of itself, rising into a thousand white stars that blink into the daylight. Melian smiles to see Galadriel so bedecked , as if the forest loved her and meant to lay claim to her. That is not altogether wrong. The forest has a life of its own - all its inhabitants in an immense web, but it is also Melian's, and Melian is the forest and the Girdle, and has a share of all within it, even the flowers in the moss. 

One is caught in Galadriel's hair as she also sits, delight plain and bright on her face. She loves the forest, for she loves Melian with all the vigour within her, but to be allowed to work her magic is her pride and joy. She vied hard to be taken as Melian's student, so hard that Melian was minded to reject her for her lust of power, until a dream showed her Galadriel standing high and white-robed in a golden valley in opposition to a rising darkness.

In that, she and Melian are alike, too. Or will be, at the least. For in the Blessed Realm she could never truly achieve her potential - the land itself too blessed for any who are not Ainur to comprehend it fully. In Beleriand it is not so. Here, Galadriel may at last be great.

"Show me, then," Melian says. "The flowers." 

Under Galadriel's gesture, nothing changes at first. Nothing springs from the earth, though Melian can sense her trying, and can feel the bulbs and buds in the cold ground sing in answer to the wordless beckoning, but more of it is the harsh undertone of Galadriel seeking to impose her will. The earth rises and fractures to some eager shoots that are yearning to come forth, a first pale green shoot coming into daylight, but nothing more, and certainly nothing fit to bloom, yet. Most stay hidden. 

"Lady?" Galadriel breathes, when Melian does not speak. The look of concentration on her face gives way to a frown, and Galadriel bites the corner of her lip, raising her hands again as if to coax the flowers into growth. One wood tulip unfolds a first leaf at her behest, but that is all. 

"If…" Melian says after some thought, "you were as the flowers - asleep - and someone sought to wake you… would you rather it were a gentle awakening, or a would you have me send the captain of my guard to drag you from your bed and bellow orders until you rose?"

"That would depend on the reason for my waking," Galadriel answers. "The first would be more pleasant, the second more effective." 

"And there would be no resentment if the second took place, regardless of reason?" 

"There… might be." Galadriel is laughing a little, now, her consternation turning to inquisitiveness. "May I try again?" 

"You may, but not yet. It is not skill or power that you lack, but understanding. I may be able to show you, if you would put yourself in my hands and power. Will you?"

"I already am, Lady," Galadriel says, and the reverence of her bowed head that she rests on the grey fabric over Melian's knee takes her breath away with love and pride, more than it ought. "Do with me what you will; I am not afraid. I am already in your power, and your hands I love." Even now in her supplication there is a note of mischief in the words, well-hidden, but Melian knows the cadences of Galadriel's speech, and this is well familiar from all the times Galadriel came to kneel before her throne, a supplicant in seeming only, and nothing at all humble in the actions that followed it. 

"Look at me," Melian says, and when Galadriel does, she answers, "Very well. You will sleep now with the sleep of these flowers, and I will wake you as one." She rests her hand between Galadriel's shoulder blades and counts her breaths, the heartbeat soft and strong under her fingertips. With her other, she touches Galadriel's forehead, just lightly, and catches her when she sags into sleep, to lay her out upon the moss again. Galadriel's face is peaceful, but rapt with attention of the experience, and Melian kisses the lightly parted lips, which move the merest fraction to open and accommodate her, petal-soft.

Melian knows she dreams of longing - the touch of sunlight on leaves, breaking through the cold earth, the hum of a bee's wings. "Rise," Melian whispers. It is a word of command as Galadriel would use it, a simple act without the promise of pleasure.

Melian watches until the corners of Galadriel's eyes wrinkle with tension, her eyes move rapidly under her lids, her lashes move as though she would wake, and she mouths, "I cannot, Lady." A shiver runs along the taut lines of her body; sinews strain as though she herself seeks to push through the earth. 

"Sweet one, calm yourself," Melian says. She sits, idly stroking Galadriel's hair again until the tension drains from her body. She twines some of the strands into a loose braid and bends to breathe the scent of spring water, of moss, and Galadriel's light that is warmth more than scent itself: it is the Blessed Realm, or its remnants, and a bittersweet homesickness that goes to Melian's very core. Some longings, she supposes, are indistinguishable. 

In her sleep, Galadriel smiles softly, exhaling what might be a sound of pleasure, were she awake, and Melian's ache, perhaps, brooks no more delay. She kisses Galadriel's lips again - _the forest loves you and I am the forest_ \- and the moss flowers rise to reach for Galadriel's hair and outfit her with a wreath like stars. 

Melian kisses her neck, lingers over the beating blood, and waits until Galadriel's pulse quickens into a staccato, although it takes all her resolve to stay still rather than outright devour her. That, too, is the forest - blood and teeth and bone belong with it as much as the flowers do. Eventually, Melian fixes her lip over the hollow of Galadriel's throat and feels her breathe and swallow and hitch from rhythm into desire. More so, when Galadriel's nipples harden under her stroking fingers, and if she were not asleep, Melian knows that she might not suck and linger this long. Any longer than she did at the start of their lesson, and sensitive as Galadriel's breasts are, that would bring her to climax too soon. Even now, with sleep dulling the sensations, she shudders in waves, and Melian sees the earth shudder in answer as more of the flowers rise from it, more eager now. 

"You are doing well," Melian says against the center of Galadriel's chest, and lets the words reverberate into her sleeping lover, into the ground, into herself in answer and answering desire both. Under her fine dress Melian is sweating, and she is more than ready to be indulged, herself. But she seeks to teach, this moment, granting only a moment's reprieve until Galadriel is not so close any longer. Melian seeks to draw this out, until the lesson is understood, until Galadriel is fit to burst as a bud in spring. She savours this, and longs to feel the shocks of it, twofold.

She continues so - teasing Galadriel to the brink by the secret places of her body - the swan-like curve of her neck where it broadens into her shoulders, by the nape of it where she moans when Melian kisses her. The moss flowers have risen to entangle Galadriel's fingers like rings, perhaps in an anticipation that Melian cannot quite place yet, and discards as unwelcome and jealous. For the moment, Galadriel belongs to her, and to the forest. _Is the forest_ , in the rising tulips echoing her desire that Melian can feel in the movements of her body, in the sleep of flowers that she is caught in until Melian sees fit to release her, or she understands and frees herself.

Melian thinks there is a radiance as if of petals under Galadriel's skin as she continues to suckle her way down her body, the breaths that she can feel in expectation, quickening, perhaps even closing in on the brink again. Maddening even to herself, Melian ceases her ministrations as she is lapping at the evidence of Galadriel's pleasure on her inner thighs, and the restlessness in Galadriel's body is palpable. 

She is so close that her eyes open a sliver of unfocused blue under golden lashes, one hand pulls from the moss and trailing fibers falls into Melian's hair to press her down with more urgency - she is in the hold of sleep yet - than strength. Her fingers are clumsy and sleepy still, and Melian laughs, herself breathless.

"I know, sweet one. You yearn as the flowers do. Do you understand now?" 

Galadriel's lips are bitten red even in sleep, her cheeks beautifully flushed. "Please," she murmurs, and her hips lift in demand. "I ache."

Melian judges that it may be time, that her teasing has gone far enough, and licks into the space that Galadriel yearns to have filled, slips her fingers in, sucks Galadriel's taste into her mouth and explores her at her leisure. The noises out of sleep that Galadriel makes blend with the wind through the forest, half-wordless breaths and gasps, her fingers curl like a budding flower, and Melian feels all the flowers rise now, and feels Galadriel claw her way out of sleep to the surface of the earth. 

She closes her lips around Galadriel's clit, finally, the merest touch, and Galadriel rises, her body sings, the flowers and the spring sing in answer and sing through Melian and break from the earth, and it is this awareness, this burst of life, that overwhelms her. 

They are resting in a sea of flowers - wild tulips, moss flowers, wood anemones, lily of the valley, hyacinths and a riot of others. A rowan above them is laden with umbels like snow on silver branches, and Galadriel lies on the ground among them like a flower herself, delight incandescent on her newly-awake face. 

Melian commits the sight to memory when the swelling pride in her lets her take a clear thought. 

"I think I understand now, Lady," Galadriel says, breathless still, but she beckons. "The forest loves me, indeed, and I love it and all within it. But more than the flowers I think I love its Guardian, and would repay her her love and care and the lesson she bestowed on me today." 

Melian offers her hand, and Galadriel pulls her down among the flowers, atop her own body.

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to Anna and Elvie for betaing and troubleshooting. ♥


End file.
